This Gemini immediate provides written steps to YouTube how-tos
Whether or not baking your first loaf of bread or constructing a PC from scratch, there’s nothing like a great YouTube video to information you thru the method. However as useful as step-by-step YouTube how-tos could be, I’ve typically wished for a written information to go together with the video — one thing that provides me an summary of your complete course of and helps me soar again to a earlier step.
Enter Gemini, which has the native capability to observe and summarize YouTube movies. For those who didn’t already know, you may ask Gemini to summarize any YouTube video by feeding it the URL. (ChatGPT can’t “watch” YouTube movies with out third-party instruments, and Claude will merely ask you to cut-and-paste a transcript.)
Even higher, you may as well get Gemini to extract and write out the steps from a how-to video, full with linked time stamps. All you want is the appropriate immediate.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting you utilize this immediate to change a YouTube how-to; as a substitute, the concept right here is to create a textual content complement that makes it simpler to observe alongside throughout a aggravating DIY undertaking, whether or not you’re kneading dough or juggling PC parts.
Right here’s the immediate (crafted by Claude after a good quantity of back-and-forth with me):
Watch this YouTube video: [URL]
Create a step-by-step information primarily based on what’s truly proven and stated. Begin with a Supplies/Instruments Listing — each device, ingredient, setting, or materials talked about or proven earlier than or throughout the course of.
Then, for every step: give it a quantity, write a brief action-oriented title, then describe precisely what to do utilizing solely what the video demonstrates. Embrace timestamps. If the presenter mentions a selected device, setting, ingredient, measurement, or materials, embody it. The place the presenter explains the explanation for a step, embody that reasoning too. Don’t add context, ideas, or recommendation that isn’t within the video — simply doc what’s there.
Lastly, add a credit score for the content material creator’s YouTube channel and supply the URL for the precise YouTube video.
This immediate does just a few key issues, beginning with providing you with a listing of instruments, elements, and/or elements up entrance. It additionally encourages Gemini to put in writing out the steps with out embellishment or inventing its personal steps, whereas additionally including linked timestamps that let you shortly soar to the right spot within the YouTube video. The immediate additionally directs Gemini to credit score the YouTube creator.
I’d recommend operating the immediate utilizing Gemini’s “Quick” (or “Flash”) mode for shorter movies (lower than 5 minutes) or “Professional” for longer movies, significantly people who contain greater than a dozen steps. The “Considering” model of Gemini most likely isn’t the appropriate alternative right here, as we’re attempting to extract info from a supply reasonably than resolve a fancy math or programming drawback.
Lastly, this immediate demonstrates how we hold people within the loop — specifically, by placing AI in the midst of the method, with human YouTube creators originally and people of us performing the precise DIY work on the finish.
